


See Through Time

by Nanineye



Category: Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer, Doctor Who
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Mutation, Regeneration (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24761872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nanineye/pseuds/Nanineye
Summary: Something is wrong, Qwan can feel it in his bones. What is happening to Artemis?
Relationships: Ninth Doctor & Artemis Fowl II
Comments: 9
Kudos: 48





	See Through Time

Qwan knew a lot about how reality worked. When he closed his eyes and focused on his breathing, he could hear it sing in his mind. He could feel alternative universes, and knew better than to try and look at them directly. He could see space and time interweaving tightly to create the world he knew. He wasn’t terribly good at it, perhaps. But he was good enough to notice something was wrong.

“This is not normal”, Number One frowned, shaking his head from side to side.

“No, it isn’t,” his teacher agreed.

The demon rose from his seat, his lesson forgotten. He tried to ignore his student’s worried voice, tried to find the origin of the disturbance. It wasn’t much, and, in most universes, it wouldn’t even be noticed. But here?

He found himself running in the streets of Haven City before he could even knew what he was doing. Some fairies looked at him with raised eyebrows as he passed them, but he ignored them. He ran, thoughts dancing in his head, trying to force them into a plan. Well, there wasn’t much he could do, was there?

Foaly did not at all expect for his day to be interrupted by a panicked demon warlock busting into his lab. The centaur watched with utter confusion as he slammed the door behind him and stared right through him.

“I need a shuttle for the surface. Now,” Qwan said.

Had his tone not been this serious, Foaly might have started laughing. He tried to come up with something appropriate to say.

“... Why?”

“Emergency. It might already be too late.”

“Well, aren’t you a bundle of joy! I can’t just magic you a ship, you know? Such a thing requires Council approval, and...”

“We don’t have time for the Council to deliberate!”

“Well, that’s a surprise!” boomed a voice right behind him.

The demon jumped and turned, frightened, to see the second person he wanted to see that day. Holly Short squared her shoulders, gave him a little smile.

“You didn’t strike me as the law breaking type,” she joked.

“Captain! I need you to come to the surface with me.”

“Excuse me?”

Holly shared a look with Foaly, the kind of look that means _help me bring down this dangerous maniac, you distract him, I’ll use my gun_. Qwan sighed, rubbing his eyes. How could he make them understand?

“It’s about Artemis Fowl,” he tried.

A twinkle of worry lit up in her eyes.

“I’m in.”

  
  


Qwan hadn’t ever thought he’d feel _relieved_ to strap into a stolen shuttle, preparing for an illegal expedition to the surface.

“So, what’s the matter with Arty?” Holly asked him, helping him do up the clasps of his security harness.

Her hair was ruffled and sweat stuck it to her head, courtesy of their mad dash to the shuttle, running from the LEP officers currently banging on the door. She tried to hide her fear behind an adrenaline-fuelled grin, but the warlock saw right through it.

“He... I think he might be dying,” he stuttered.

She pressed her lips in a thin line, and went to take her spot in the pilot’s station. The men at the door had retreated; a wise move, since the take-off would have burnt them to a crisp. Holly Short had always been a daring pilot. But today, her audacity bordered on recklessness. Qwan grit his teeth, bracing himself against the plastic seat, thankful for her haste.

When she landed them on the front lawn of Fowl Manor, helping him out of his cocoon o camfoil, folding her mechanical wings behind her and following him towards the door, she tried to talk to him again. The intense flying session hadn’t allowed for much conversation.

“What are we doing here?” she asked.

He marched on, and, finding the door opened, entered the dwelling. He let his instincts guide him through the maze of corridors, ignoring Holly’s worried rambling.

“Why was the door left open? Why is _no one_ here? They usually have staff, you know... Are you even listening to me?”

He wasn’t.

He rounded a corner, and found himself face-to-knee with the infamous Butler. The legendary manservant was as towering as ever, of course, his expression determined and impassive.

“You came,” he frowned.

“Yes, of course. You don’t sound too surprised?”

Butler scowled, but remained silent.

“I’m going to need you to tell me the truth, Mud Man,” Qwan told him. “You knew we would come, didn’t you? _How?_ ”

The human’s composure almost cracked, and he turned away from them. The warlock felt Holly tense up behind him. She was probably pretty shaken up at seeing her friend in such distress. But there was no time to take care of her worries.

Butler took a deep breath, and spoke, not looking at his fairy guests.

“He knew you would. He told me months ago to expect your visit.”

“ _Months_?” he gasped.

“Yes. He said you would come, and perhaps Number One too. Guess he was wrong about that...”

“Take me to him,” Qwan said firmly, recovering from his surprise.

“He is in no shape to receive visitors,” Butler snarled as he faced him suddenly. “What is happening to him? Why did you come? How did he _know_?”

If Qwan hadn’t already been scared to death by the situation, the bodyguard’s haunted expression would have done the trick.

“It’s difficult to explain,” he protested. “We don’t have the...”

He stopped. That wasn’t completely true. That _wrong_ feeling that had assaulted him hours earlier was still there, of course, now that he had noticed it. But it wasn’t as strong.

He sighed, and looked back at Holly, who tried to process whatever was happening.

“I guess I owe you both an explanation,” the warlock admitted. “Butler, please take us to him.”

The boy laid in a bed in one of his labs, pale, covered in a thin sheet of sweat, still. Two electrodes were pressed on his temples, a few hand-made monitors displaying graphs and numbers. As his visitors watched, a few blue sparks ran across his arm, making him twitch slightly. His breathing, shallow and quick, was the only sound in the eerily silent room.

After a brief moment of this pathetic spectacle, Qwan made himself move forward. He brought a hand to the boy’s forehead, brought it back with a wince as a sparkle licked his fingers. He looked at the screens, at the contraption of cables linking Artemis to the computers crunching data, and shook his head.

“What is it?” Holly asked, her voice breaking a bit.

“He... He is further gone than I would have thought.”

Qwan dragged over a chair, sitting next to the human, watching the monitors. The two other imitated him, eyes on their sick friend.

“Demons have... a special link with the rest of the universe,” the warlock started. “We can _feel_ time and space, kind of. Sense the existence of parallel worlds. But there is one thing we can never, ever do. We can’t ever look directly in the fabric of space and time.”

One of the monitors flashed softly as the graph it displayed climbed a bit higher. Qwan braced himself, the _feeling_ getting a bit stronger. After a few seconds, it receded, and the graph went back to normal. Artemis shivered.

“When we moved Hybras,” he resumed, “I didn’t say it. Because it’s written in the genetic code of basically every living thing. Don’t look in the time vortex. It should have been impossible, too. We didn’t have any bodies at the time, and we were focused on...”

“He looked?” Holly interrupted.

“He did. It lasted barely a fraction of a second, I thought I had imagined it... But I can see now, he did. He should have died on the spot, dissolving into the vortex... But he somehow didn’t. He absorbed some raw time energy, and just... _kept it_... It should have burned him up. But now, it... It...”

“It’s killing him,” Butler softly prompted.

“Not really, no. It’s worse than that. He’s _adapted_ to it. There are rumours... legends... There is a species, in another universe, very far away. A race that evolved with time energy. They are genetically close to humans... It is said that the first Time Lords descended from humans exposed to the time vortex.”

Holly immediately bolted up from her seat, a new spark in her eyes.

“Are you saying Artemis Fowl is switching species?”

“Yes.”

“But if he’s adapting, it’s all good! He’s going to be fine!”

“The...”

“He’s going to be fine!”

Butler rested a hand on the elf’s shoulder to make her sit back down.

“It can’t be that simple,” he murmured. “Look at him...”

“Indeed,” Qwan nodded. “The transformation is too radical, it’s taking too much of a toll on his body.”

“He’s been worse and worse for weeks,” Butler explained. “First, he complained of heart problems, and started to take medication for it. Then it was his stomach acting up. Finally, neck pains... This morning, he asked me to settle him here, and he passed out once he was all set up. He hasn’t moved since.”

“He’s a clever boy. He knows what’s going on. He probably knew it would come for a long time.”

“Is he... Is he going to die?”

“In a way, yes. Worst case scenario, he dies and stays dead. Best case scenario, the transformation brings him back as a Time Lord, but then we have another problem. Time Lords undergo this kind of regeneration when they die, you see... They change, and they come back. But, as they do so, they give out massive amounts of time energy. He’s doing that too, that’s what I picked up...”

“Is that energy... dangerous?” Holly ventured.

“A bit. But it is also extremely valuable. And right now, it is emanating from him, radiating across a few universes. He’s trying to control it, but it’s only a matter of time until he can’t hold it back and some alien species arrives to cannibalize the energy. And nothing tells us they will leave us alone afterwards.”

A pregnant silence filled the room while everybody tried to take in the situation.

“We can’t risk the planet,” Holly finally said.

“No.”

“How do we stop the transformation?”

Qwan’s look was more violent than any words.

“Wait,” interrupted Butler, an edge of desperation to his voice. “You can’t possibly mean... You can’t kill him!”

“In a way, he is already dead,” sighed the demon.

Qwan’s determination faltered, and he watched Artemis shiver with the effort of controlling the energy changing his body, building him a new heart, splitting his brain stem, rewriting his biology.

“What about these time people you talked about?” the bodyguard added. “Won’t they do something?”

“Artemis’ energy signature is still too weak... They are very powerful, and they could smother the signal so it’s undetectable to others. But they also very keen on their laws, and unnecessary meddling is not allowed. They will think this is a time machine breaking down, or residual energy from some sort of cataclismic event, and they will delay coming. We have no way of telling them that this is an actual emergency. Once they discover what is going on, there could already be a dozen alien empires on the warpath.”

“I don’t care. I won’t let you harm him.”

“If he continues to emit time energy, the planet...”

“That’s not for sure!”

“Still, the-”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Shut up, both of you!”

Holly’s outburst stopped them both in their tracks.

“He asked you to let us in, didn’t he?”

“He did,” Butler conceded. “He said, if something weird was to happen...”

“Well, don’t you think it means something? He _wants_ us to stop him. He knew we would need to.”

Speechless, Butler hung his head. He was too sensible a man to ignore the truth when it stared him in the eye. He looked down at his unconscious charge, heart heavy in his chest.

Holly set her jaw and took her gun out. She dialed the power to its maximum, and removed the safety.

“Are you sure about this, Qwan?”

“Hang on.”

“Qwan?”

“Just a second. Did you... Did you see a golden spark in there?”

Something flickered in Artemis’ neck, and, sure enough, it was amber.

“He’s getting closer to the Gallifreyan energy signature.”

“Close enough for others to notice him?”

“There are billions of Time Lords. He... They won’t detect him, they make too much interference... But he... He...”

“What is it?”

Qwan frowned, and looked closely at the electrodes plastered on the boy’s forehead.

“These are not normal,” he noted.

“It’s his last project,” Butler explained. “He designed them when he started having symptoms. He seemed to believe they were a failure, but he still insisted I used these to monitor him.”

“These are telepathic amplificators,” the warlock marvelled. “Adjusted on Gallifreyan wavelengths. Incredible technology...”

“Do you think it might save him?”

“I... No. The problem remains the same. There is too much noise, he’s getting drowned out by full Time Lords. He knew it, and only used them for monitoring.”

“Can we afford to wait?”

“Probably not.”

The time energy was getting stronger every second, dangerously spiking before being brought down in extremis, reaching higher and higher.

Holly raised her gun, focusing on not looking at her friend’s face. He would die anyway, she reasoned. He was already dead. He wanted this to end. He was a bother to her race, and they were better off without him. But she couldn’t help but know she was kidding herself, and remember how young he was...

She closed her eyes, breathing steadily. She gave herself three seconds. What for, she didn’t know. Perhaps she hoped for a miracle.

Artemis had always liked to cut it short. The machines beeped two seconds into her countdown. She opened her eyes, and stared at the unbelievably green bleeping screens, the measurement of time energy gradually falling to zero as the signal was artificially stifled. Then a whooshing interrupted it. It grew, grew, filling the room. Holly barely noticed Qwan falling to his knees, a reverent expression on his face, as a big blue telephone box materialized in the room.

The cabin’s door opened with an ominous creak, and a man appeared. It was an old, tired man in tattered clothing, with a short white beard and wrinkled skin. He didn’t look like much, but every instinct in Holly screamed at her that this man was not ordinary at all. Something in his eyes, maybe. They seemed to be old, even older than the man’s frail appearance. He stood there a moment, looking at the child shivering on his death bed. His eyes glazed over him, as if he had already seen so much that he couldn’t even see anymore. But a small light appeared in his gaze, and he stepped out of his box.

A few golden sparks crackled on his skin, but he ignored them, kneeling at Artemis’ bedside. He looked at the blue and gold light racing through his veins, and disapprovingly shook his head.

“That’s too weak, little one,” he grumbled.

He breathed in, deep, and his golden aura grew stronger, almost blinding. He furrowed his brow, thinking intently.

“I must be selfish,” he murmured.

He leaned in, pressed his lips to Artemis’ forehead, _pushing_ his power into the boy. Golden light blossomed under his touch, invading the boy’s body. With a gasp and a bang, his limbs erupted into raw energy. Holly hurriedly backed away as it came dangerously close to her skin, and watched as the light grew, radiating heat, before finally retreating, her friend falling back on the bed, motionless but breathing.

“You didn’t change,” noted the man, examining the boy’s still body. “That’s weird.”

Holly finally found the courage to say something.

“Change?” she stuttered.

“Change,” nodded the man, his eyes fixed on Artemis.

The light around him was glowing even brighter now. Closing his eyes, he too lit up in a fountain of glorious light. Under the stupefied eyes of the fairies and the human bodyguard, the man grew taller. His hair shortened. His beard disappeared. His face changed.

And a younger man came out of the light.

He gave the sleeping boy an adoring look, eyes filled with something akin to hope. Then he glanced up at the three people around the bed, as if seeing them for the first time.

“Hello,” he grinned. “I’m the Doctor.”

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo I was sitting on this one for quite some time, but then I saw the movie and told myself that I couldn't possibly write anything more OOC than that. So, here. I really like the idea of a Doctor/Artemis relation ship, I think they could learn a lot from each other ^^ Do tell me what you think about it, and have a nice day!


End file.
